I jut like a lot of you have a fantasy football draft coming u this weekend; as a matter of fact I have three of them. Most of the time the drafts happen over the Labor Day weekend since it’s the last weekend before the regular season starts and this season is no different. This year my drafts are Saturday night, Sunday night and Monday morning.
I’m not sure why, but this season I’m having a very difficult time getting ready for my drafts. For some reason I’m just not that interested in the NFL, but I’m hoping that will change as the drafts get closer.
As I try to do my research and keep up with which players are injured and which players won’t be starters this season, but I seem to be coming up with more questions than answers. I’m just going to go position by position and see if you can help me answer them.
Quarterback may be the premier position in the NFL, but as far as fantasy goes depending on your leagues scoring system you don’t need to draft one to early. There are always going to be people who’ll grab their favorite quarterback too early, but I find it’s better to wait and see who’s left later in the draft. The issue is; which quarterback to draft?
Is Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts going to be a good gamble?
Luck hasn’t shown much during the pre-season, but he does appear to be healthy; so that’s a plus. He completed 62.5% of his passes, but he only averaged 6.38 yards per attempt; so there have been questions about his arm strength. I’m not sure if I’d want to go into the season with Luck as my starter though.
How about the quarterbacks that went #1 and #2 in the 2015 draft Jameis Winston of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Marcus Mariota of the Tennessee Titans.
Right out of the gate Winston is a tough choice since he’s suspended for the first three games of the season; so if you did decide to go with him you’ll need someone else for the games Winston will miss during his suspension and then his bye week. Winston did put up good pre-season numbers; so he could be a guy to take as the back up to your starter if he’s around longer enough. I smaller leagues he may even go undrafted.
Mariota will be working with a new head coach and new offensive coordinator, but that could go either way. Mariota only attempted 18 passes in the pre-season and while 2 of them went for touchdowns he also threw an interception. Of course Mariota’s mobility makes him and intriguing choice as it gives him the opportunity to turn broken plays into big yardage. I think I’d be willing to go into this season with Mariota as my starter.
How about those quarterbacks that changed teams this off season. Sam Bradford now with the Arizona Cardinals, Alex Smith now with the Washington Redskins, Kirk Cousins now with the Minnesota Vikings, Case Keenum with the Denver Broncos and Teddy Bridgewater now with the New York Jets.
If you’re willing to wait long enough in your draft and focus on other positions there’s a chance that you could end up with one of these quarterbacks as your starter this season.
The biggest question with this group is whether or not Bridgewater will end up being the starter for the Jets or if they’ll go with rookie Sam Darnold. Bridgewater has looked like the better quarterback in pre-season, but Darnold has been making all of the starts. There have also been quite a few reports about the Jets looking into trading Bridgewater. Also with the Jets rebuilding it might be better for them to have Darnold get snaps instead of Bridgewater who’s just on a one year deal. Unless something changes I think I’ll stay away from Bridgewater.
Out of the other four quarterbacks in new places it appears as though Cousins is in the best position to succeed. Smith has always had the “game manager” tag hung on him, but he’s shown that he can go downfield. Keenum stepped up last season and does have a pair of good veteran wide receivers to work with. Bradford is just the place holder until Arizona decides that Josh Rosen is ready and with Bradford’s injury history that may be sooner rather than later.
Besides Darnold it looks as though the only other rookie who might start at quarterback is Josh Allen for the Buffalo Bills. While the Baltimore Ravens have said that Lamar Jackson will be used in their offense; I doubt he’ll score enough on a weekly basis to be your starter. There is a chance that Rosen and Baker Mayfield could see playing time, but I don’t think either will be the starter in Week 1.
It probably won’t be a good season for you if you go into Week 1 with one of these rookies as your starter, but if you happen to be in a keeper league it might not be a bad idea to grab one or maybe even two of these quarterbacks and stash them on your bench. In this case you may only have to play him on your starters bye week.
Now the quarterbacks that we didn’t mention with the exception of maybe one or two of them should all be starters; so I don’t think we need to go into too much detail with them.
Now I know that on Sunday my team will be picking 5th in the draft; so that can help plan out an attack. My other two drafts I won’t find out where I’m drafting until about 30 minutes before the draft; so that makes it a little tougher to be prepared.
I’m not sure how much this helped you or me, but hopefully it was some assistance as you head into your draft. There are millions of rankings out there that you can look at; so I didn’t want to go through and give you one more list to read.
Good luck in your draft and let me know how it goes.
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